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Morton & Eden Ltd
Auction 83-84  1-2 December 2016
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Lot 579

Estimate: 400 GBP
Price realized: 450 GBP
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Lycia, Kandyba, Tranquillina (238-244), Æ 29mm, draped bust right, rev., ΚΑΝΔΥΒΕΩ-Ν ΔΕΥΚΑΛΙΩΝ, Deukalion standing facing, wearing polos and holding sceptre, 16.33g (SNG von Aulock 4294; H. von Aulock, Die Münzprägung des Gordian III und der Tranquillina in Lykien (1974), 63; Robert, Hellenica X (1955), 221, pl. III, 2, all referring to this coin), fine and the only recorded example so evidently unique. Ex Hans von Aulock collection and Auctiones, Basel, October 1976, lot 245. A foundation of considerable antiquity, Pliny refers to Kandyba as a city which was then well-known for a sacred grove which lay nearby. It claimed to take its name from the mythical Kandybos, one of six children of Deukalion, son of Prometheus. In Greek mythology Deukalion (the "Greek Noah") and his wife Pyrrha were the only survivors when Zeus unleashed a deluge to obliterate humanity for its evil ways. In earlier versions of the story it seems that only the two humans survived, but by the second century AD the writer Lucian of Samosata related that Deukalion '...placed his children and his wives in an ark of great size [and] when he had gone on board there came to him wild boars and horses, lions and serpents, and all the other creatures which walk on the earth, all in pairs' – hence his association with the biblical story of Noah and the Ark and with other religions. A bronze coin of Tranquillina's husband, Gordian III, with a Deukalion reverse from a different die to the present coin exists in a private collection. (£400-600)
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